Since the turn of the millennium, electronic communication is in constant transformation to meet growing global demand. The telecommunications industry is in the midst of a massive and rapid change. All electronic communication paths whether by wire line, cable or wireless are converging and collapsing into each other on common data and communications protocols. The separate domains of telephone, cable, wireless and the interne are rapidly converging into an integrated and ubiquitous communications platform tied together by the common electronic language of Internet Protocol (IP).
The integration of the telecommunications industry with the enterprise software industry presents extraordinary challenges in the development of new communication service solutions. The results of meeting these challenges include significantly improved services and lower life cycle costs. As stated by Ivan Seidenberg, CEO of Verizon Communications, “what used to be separate domains—phone calls, photos, music, movies, games, work—are now unified in a continuous stream of bits and bytes.” Costs and barriers to entry into telecommunications systems will decline and the pricing for commodity voice and data services will be deflationary. With the capacity and capabilities of the IP based telecommunications networks rapidly increasing, the integration of value-added data applications are required to differentiate service offerings, increase revenues, prevent churn and to create new wealth.
The key challenges facing systems designers include:                Communications and information systems remain stove-piped. Some cross-department interoperability has begun and there exists a strong top-down organizational impetus to expedite improved collaboration between remote individuals and organizations across a plurality of remote and disparate devices. This sense of urgency is driven by lessons learned from catastrophic events such as the 911 NYC Trade Tower attacks, Hurricane Katrina and the war on global terrorism.        There is a strong cultural, and often language, barrier to inter-department communications. Even within intra-departments there are large barriers: most often between (a) the infrastructure technical staffs, (b) the analyst staffs, and (c) the operations staffs. Each group asserts that its own agenda is primary, with predictable turf wars and the results. The major consensus is that to overcome these organizational wars, a solution must be independent of hardware architecture, corresponding operating systems, and software language. In addition, the solution must be operable on existing electronic and machine devices and existing communication network infrastructure without any modification or acquisition of new equipment.        “The threat drives the need for change.” Entities, whether organizations or individuals, make decisions based upon their own requirements and standard operating procedures, which requires information to be actionable in the way that meets their budgets, timeline and existing culture. The ability to present information in the way an entity can readily recognize it is crucial to success; this ultimately requires providing and processing global interoperability of communications and information systems to yield real-time situational assessment and a common operating picture necessary for improved decision making.        There is an emerging recognition that communications and information synergies take place at “intra-entity” relationships, creating “fusion centers” and centralized repositories with a two-way flow when the demand arises to extend operations to “inter-entity” relationships such as government, enterprise, or “tribal organizations.”        Security of all communications and information transfer and storage is paramount. Security solutions must be capable of supporting any existing or emerging security-based encryption algorithms such as Automated Encryption Standard (AES), Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) and Virtual Matrix Encryption without modification to existing systems or infrastructure.        
Employing digital convergence of communications and information provides real-time integration of voice, data, video, and images, thus enabling the present invention to uniquely and effectively meet current key and emerging requirement drivers as well as mission-specific requirements emanating from public and private sector entities and individual consumers.
Even with the emerging capabilities, the drawbacks of current systems are rooted in the lack of comprehensive integration between communications systems and information management systems. Predominantly, these drawbacks are exemplified by non-existent or limitations in: real-time two-way communications and management controls of a plurality of remote devices from any given remote device; identification of individual and event-specific workflow and content; object level rights management security; voice, data, video and image solutions delivered as services; and converged or unified automated message handling.
While some existing inventions provide partial capabilities as compared to the present invention, they lack the system architecture to provide robust features and benefits. The following patents appear to present certain functions and features that may provide components that address certain of the problems addressed above.
Disclosed SystemPat. No.CapabilitiesLimitations in System Capabilities6,816,878Provides voice and dataDoes not permit real-time two-waynotification to recipientscommunications and acknowledgementswith recipients or machine devices; doesnot enable identification of individual andevent-specific data, tasks, projects,personnel assignment, documents, contentmanagement; lacks object level rightsmanagement security; lacks two-waycommunications and management controlof remote machines and sensors; lacksconverged voice, data and video solutionsthat are delivered as services; lacksconverged automated message handling.6,591,094Automated user notificationDoes not permit real-time two-waysystem that monitors andcommunications and acknowledgementsnotifies a user when selectedwith recipients or machine devices; doesconditions occurnot enable identification of individual andevent-specific data, tasks, projects,personnel assignment, documents, contentmanagement; lacks object level rightsmanagement security; lacks two-waycommunications and management controlof remote machines and sensors; lacksconverged voice, data and video solutionsthat are delivered as services; lacksconverged automated message handling.6,810,383Method and apparatus forDiscloses two-way task management, butelectronically managing thedoes not permit complete real-time two-assignment of tasks to beway communications andcompletedacknowledgements with recipients ormachine devices; does not enableidentification of individual and event-specific data, tasks, projects, personnelassignment, documents, contentmanagement; lacks object level rightsmanagement security; lacks two-waycommunications and management controlof remote machines and sensors; lacksconverged voice, data and video solutionsthat are delivered as services; lacksconverged automated message handling.6,870,906The system integrates aDiscloses two-way telephony using thewireless device, a directPSTN, but does not permit complete real-connect device and atime two-way communications andtelephone system foracknowledgements with recipients orreceiving an alarm conditionmachine devices; does not enablefrom a remote device andidentification of individual and event-then and passing that alarmspecific data, tasks, projects, personnelthrough the PSTNassignment, documents, contentmanagement; lacks object level rightsmanagement security; lacks two-waycommunications and management controlof remote machines and sensors; lacksconverged voice, data and video solutionsthat are delivered as services; lacksconverged automated message handling.7,110,918A machine monitoringDiscloses one-way data receipt ofsystem and method uses amonitored machines, but does not permitmachine monitoring devicereal-time two-way communications and(MMD) connected to theacknowledgements with recipients ormonitored machinemachine devices; does not enableidentification of individual and event-specific data, tasks, projects, personnelassignment, documents, contentmanagement; lacks object level rightsmanagement security; lacks two-waycommunications and management controlof remote machines and sensors; lacksconverged voice, data and video solutionsthat are delivered as services; lacks convergedautomated message handling7,103,644A system for convergedDiscloses converged voice, data and videoservice creation andsolutions that are delivered as services, butexecution for voice orienteddoes not permit real-time two-wayor for non-voice-orientedcommunications and acknowledgementsservices.with recipients or machine devices; doesnot enable identification of individual andevent-specific data, tasks, projects,personnel assignment, documents, contentmanagement; lacks object level rightsmanagement security; lacks two-waycommunications and management controlof remote machines and sensors; lacks convergedautomated message handling
Accordingly, there does not appear to be any known prior art methods, systems, or patents, that disclose or address the potential advantages of a comprehensive integration between communications systems and information management systems. Such systems should include real-time two-way communications and management controls of a plurality of remote devices from any given remote device; identification of individual and event-specific workflow and content; object level rights management security; voice, data, video and image solutions delivered as services; and converged or unified automated message handling. Such an innovative method and system has not been seen or achieved in the relevant art. The following describes such a method and system.